


The Silence and the Sons

by gypsyweaver



Series: A Tale of Crowns and Coins [10]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Exposition, Hurt/Comfort, Ineffable Bureaucracy (Good Omens), Multi, Nonbinary Beelzebub (Good Omens), Other, The Ineffable Plan (Good Omens), They/Them Pronouns for Beelzebub (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:07:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23887189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gypsyweaver/pseuds/gypsyweaver
Summary: Beelzebub puts Israfil in a place where he can do no further harm, and they speak to Gabriel about their children--past and future.
Relationships: Beelzebub/Gabriel (Good Omens), Beelzebub/Raphael (Good Omens)
Series: A Tale of Crowns and Coins [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1684990
Comments: 13
Kudos: 19





	The Silence and the Sons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alaiis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alaiis/gifts).



> CW: trauma, past rape (mentioned, not graphic), weird body horror, one mention of a cock, nudity (but it's not sexy), no smut (sorry, but I'll totally make it up to y'all, I swear)
> 
> This is where I put a lot of exposition and some cuddles.

Beelzebub had always admired the endeavors of humans. Their cleverness and the beauty that they could create. They had been privileged to be present at the premier of Beethoven’s ninth symphony. There had been a moment, the briefest of moments, between the final fall of the conductor’s baton (Beethoven himself, deaf as a stone, was still madly and joyfully conducting, but M. Duport had finished the symphony) and the explosion of applause that shook the beams of the Theater am Kärntnertor. In that moment, besides the flailing of a deaf man, the theatre had fallen into the deepest silence. A silence that was a lush and living thing. As deep as the velvet of the curtains. So differentiated was it from the bold, final note of the “Ode to Joy”, that it became an organism all its own.

Beelzebub thought that the silence in their kitchen--after the pain became too much for Israfil to bear and he slumped into his chair--was close kin to that silence.

They dropped the clenched fist, and felt skin and bones loosen. Felt the blood return to their fingers. Israfil was still alive, but unconscious. His unconsciousness would not last long.

They denuded him with a miracle, and moved the restraining collar from his cock to his neck. Good. Good.

Another touch rendered him unable to move. Beelzebub grabbed his ankles and swiftly jerked him out of the chair. Israfil hit the slate floor with a satisfying thwump. Hitting the cold tiles was enough to rouse him.

“Remiel...” he groaned.

“Actually, it’s Beelzebub now,” they said.

“What are you doing?”

“Preparing you.”

“For burial?” Israfil asked, and his deep blue eyes grew wide and frightened.

“You’d have to be dead for that,” Beelzebub said, matter-of-factly. “No, you don’t get to die. Not yet.”

Beelzebub straddled his chest. The spicy scent of him, vanilla and clove, mixed pleasantly with the coffee smell that permeated the kitchen. Here, on top of Israfil, on a slate floor in a very bright and very clean kitchen--here, after defeating their old teacher and assuring peace for themself, Gabriel, and their sons--here, they allowed themself a deep breath. A moment of quiet contentment, on the prone and defeated corporation of Israfil.

They glanced over at Gabriel, flashing him a benign smile. Smiling. They used to smile all the time in the Garden, before they realized the truth of their existence. Before they knew that Israfil was a monster, and by extension, so was God.

Gabriel watched them with his usual intensity. He must have no idea what to expect from them. Whether they would end Israfil or not. Gabriel was a fighter. The fighters dispatched their enemies, if they could.

Beelzebub had larger plans. Merciful plans.

“Remiel...what are you going to do to me?” Israfil asked, his tone quavering and frightened. “I am your master...I--”

Beelzebub laid a gentle finger over his lips. “I’m not going to harm you.”

“What are you...going to do, then?”

“You’re powerless, now,” Beelzebub said. “And I did make a promise. I plan to show you everything that I learned in six thousand years...and I plan to give you something more sustaining than coffee. I plan to show you the mercy that you and God never showed me. Do you remember what the Templars called me, Israfil?”

“B-Baphomet, wasn’t it?”

Beelzebub smiled and nodded. “Yes. Baphomet. The place where justice and mercy kiss. That is where I shall keep you. Where you will do harm to none, and perhaps--some distant day--you can mend the damage that you’ve wrought upon me, Aziraphale, all of your siblings, and the world.”

“Please...”

“Goodnight, Izzrafil. Until we meet again.”

“No! Wait!”

But Beelzebub did not wait. Israfil began the curious process of shedding years. Being an angel, the only corporation that he’d ever possessed was the one that he had now. Israfil, like every other angel except Aziraphale, had never been a child. Now, though, under the influence of Beelzebub’s miracles, he shrank from a man to a youth. Then to a boy, and then smaller, to a toddler, and then to a baby. Beelzebub dismounted Israfil and continued working their miracles. Smaller still, until he was as tiny and pink as Aziraphale had been, just moments after being drawn, steaming, from Remiel’s loins. His wings returned to the material plane, the featherless wings of an infant, and curled around him.

They prepared their body. A long, slender cord of tissue dropped out of them. Beelzebub connected it to the baby, and continued shrinking him.

When he was palm-sized, they pulled the collar off of Israfil and drew him up into their hand. Translucent, membranous skin covered the blood vessels that were powered by both of their hearts. They touched his head, ran a gentle finger along his neck and his spine. Beelzebub marveled at the tiny, perfectly formed hands, the tiny feet.

Many times, when they were carrying Aziraphale, Raphael had opened them to look in on the baby. They remembered how it felt to want to touch every part of him, to know that their body was building him. To watch him grow and celebrate every one of his eyelashes and toenails. To kiss the pulsing crown of his head and whisper his name to him.

To feel the love and pride of their mentor. Their lover. Chosen by God, and often as terrible as She was. It made the tender moments so much richer.

Maybe the harshest thing of all was the warmth of that love, and how quickly it evaporated. Maybe the harshest thing of all was that Beelzebub may have feared Israfil, but they never stopped loving him. No, not really.

So this was their solution. Imprisonment within their flesh, until they were ready to be a mother again. Until Gabriel was ready...

They continued to shrink him, and eventually, the umbilicus drew him inside. A reverse birth. Once inside, Israfil shrank down into a tiny ball of cells, and Beelzebub wrapped him in the lining of their uterus. He would remain there, a dormant seed, until...

Beelzebub sighed. They rose from their kitchen floor. Hesitant and coltish in their movements, completely lacking their usual grace and confidence, they crossed the four tiles that separated them from Gabriel. They healed his mouth, and released his arms from his chest. Slowly, they disentangled his skin from the chair.

“Are you alright?” they asked, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“I’m fine. Did you...eat him?” Gabriel asked, his voice tinged with awe.

Beelzebub laughed, and that laugh felt like a storm breaking inside them. They slid down into Gabriel’s lap and laid their head on his shoulder as their laughter fell in peals. Like sheets of rain.

“I didn’t...” they gasped, when they finally could. “I didn’t eat him. He’s...inside me.”

“Like a parasite?”

“Like a child,” Beelzebub corrected as they sat up, meeting Gabriel’s eyes. “He’s dormant now.”

“Now? Is that going to change?”

“Maybe after a few decadezz, when I’m ready to be a mother again. When you’re ready...”

“You want...me...to be his father?”

They sighed. “It’s complicated. He asked me if I wanted to have another go at it, and I didn’t.” Beelzebub made a sour face. “Not with him. But...with you? Maybe...”

“You want us...to raise him?”

“Eventually, yezz,” they said, and it surprised them how certain that they were on the subject. “I think...I think Raphael could be a very different person, raised well and loved.”

“By us?”

“Who better? He’s a blank slate. He has no memory of his life, beyond a certain level of intuition--one that all babiezz are born with,” Beelzebub said. “But, he can just as easily stay inside me, eternally, as a little cluster of cells. He can’t be discorporated unless I am. Which means that, short of Divine Intervention, he’ll never be able to return to Heaven and make trouble for us.”

“You’re leaving it up to me?”

“Not entirely,” Beelzebub said. “We spent six thousand years azz...professional rivals. A handful of months as friends. A few glorious days as lovers...I want more. I’m not ready to share you with a child.” They smiled at him. “I’m talking about an eventuality. When we’re both ready. If we’re both ready.”

“If not?”

“He stays inside, safe.”

“And you?”

“What about me?”

Gabriel wrapped his arms around them and pulled them close. “What if I’m not ready and you are?”

“That’s years in the future. Maybe decades. Potentially centuriezz.” They lifted their hands to cradle his head. To reassure him. “My love, I won’t be ready to bear and raise this angel until I’ve completely healed from the time I spent in his service. Until I’m certain that I won’t revert to my training the moment he gets taller than me. Yearzz and yearzz.”

“You’re buzzing again,” he said, and his voice smiled.

“Izzrafil wouldn’t like it,” they said. “The buzzing. It would have reminded him of what I became. I wanted to pleazze him. To keep us in our skin.”

Gabriel relaxed a bit under their touch, but it was short-lived. He found their eyes, and then he gripped them by the back of their neck. His lips fell on theirs, and the kiss was so slow and so tender that they felt themself flush from face to chest. They murmured his name into his mouth, and it felt like a prayer.

“Are you mad at me...about Aziraphale?” he asked, when he broke the kiss.

“No. Not at all. You didn’t know who he wazz to me. And you were following the Metatron’s orders. It’zz not like you could have begged that off.” Beelzebub paused. “Aziraphale survived, either by God’s grace or by her absence. Is that why you’re worried about raising Izzrafil? You think I’m mad at you for following orders?”

“A little. Yeah.” He kissed them again, and they felt their breasts start to leak. “I never got along with Aziraphale, okay? I might’ve liked the idea of ending him more than was...well...Heavenly.” He sighed. “I thought you were trying to protect that demon...I mean, after what you said at the airbase.”

“Crowley? The airbase?”

“Look, you two actually bantered at the end of the fucking world,” Gabriel blurted. “I thought he might be an ex...or a current...and you were ticked off because he’s obviously got something going with this Principality...’Traitor’, you called him a traitor.”

“Oh, Archangel, Crowley was never my lover. It’s just...just...the war was supposed to make all of demonkind free, one way or the other,” Beelzebub said, and buried their face in the skin of his neck. “Crowley, too. He’d been in the same position as me. I know. I cared for him afterwards.”

“Who was it?”

“Usually, I let people tell their own stories...”

“Beez, how many people do you actually talk to?”

“The Princes, Dagon, a few choice underlings, and you.” Beelzebub sighed. “It was Adam.”

“Adam?”

“Garden Adam...not my Adam.”

“I guessed that part. Your Adam is a toddler, isn’t he?” There was humor and affection in his voice and he ran a hand through their sleek hair. Beelzebub shivered.

“‘Crawly’ is not a very...Godly...name, is it?” Beelzebub asked him. “Adam saw a new animal in the Garden--after he’d eaten of the fruit and knew right from wrong, mind you. He had to know Crowley in order to name him, and Adam only got to know animals in one way,” they explained. “Crowley bit him, and Adam stomped him. I healed him after he returned to Hell. He was in bad shape, but he said he’d only met one angel. Aziraphael.”

“Aziraphael didn’t notice he was hurt?”

“Crowley is made up of at least three-fourths bravado. I’m sure he covered the pain well.” They paused. “Anyways, Israfil did mention that my boy was no great healer.”

“So you called Crowley a traitor because he was...another...”

Beelzebub decided to stop the quest that Gabriel had begun to find a softer word. A nicer word. “Victim,” they said, plainly. “Yes.”

“And you wanted the war to make sure that you didn’t end up hurt again.”

“I thought we both did,” Beelzebub said. “Crowley had done really magnificent work for us. But...in the end...he sided with the humans.”

“What would you have done...if you’d found Aziraphale in the war?”

“Probably just what I did with Israfil.”

Gabriel paused. There was a terrible hurt in his eyes, warring with his curiosity. He finally asked, “What would you have done...if you’d found me?”

“Asked you nicely to make it quick and painless, if you could.”

“What? You could discorporate me before my sword fell.”

“Yezz...if God allowed it.” They held onto him tighter, feeling the tears spill from their eyes, leak onto his neck, and down his chest to join the milk. “But God would never allow the demonzz a fair fight. I would have asked for mercy. For your mercy and your blade.”

“You would have had it,” he said, and his voice was feather-soft.

Beelzebub had a brief, but true, image of themself. Dirty and ragged, speckled with gold and black blood, looking up at Gabriel in his war uniform. Begging him to close their eyes forever, and to be clean about it. Dropping down to their knees in the blood-spattered sand of Megiddo, finding some final kindness in those purple eyes, bowing their head and baring the back of their neck for him.

They would never know what they lost. Neither of them would ever know what they lost.

“I’m glad that we’re free,” Beelzebub said. “Finally free.”

A loud rumble in front of the house announced (at about 80 decibels) that they still had some unfinished business. Pestilence, Beelzebub could feel his approach in their bones. They rose off of Gabriel, working the miracles necessary to clean and dress them both.

“That would be Pezztilence,” they said, brightly. “He’s right on time.”

**Author's Note:**

> For Alaiis, who is ever supportive of all my IB endeavors!
> 
> [Beethoven's Ninth, AKA The Ode to Joy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._9_\(Beethoven\))
> 
> [Baphomet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baphomet), who was originally portrayed as a cat. Like Beelzebub.
> 
> ICYMI: The reason that Israfil can be kept inside of Beelzebub is because angels are essentially trapped inside inside their corporations. Unless something (summoning circle, lorry incident, guillotine) happens to discorporate them, they can't escape. Israfil was not discorporated, so he's stuck.
> 
> Beelzebub is not having this kid until they are ready and certain. Their life is their own. Finally.
> 
> Comments and kudos make me smile! Concrit welcome!


End file.
